Xiji Coin Museum was established in 1996, with a collection of more than 200,000 ancient coins. There are a complete range of ancient coins, from the origin of money in Shang and Zhou dynasties to the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Li Huairen, founder and former curator of the Coin Museum, said that the oldest coins were shells from Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Shells were originally used as women's decorations, and later gradually evolved into currency in circulation. Xiji County belonged to Yongzhou in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, inhabited by Dirong tribe, which was mainly nomadic, and used Beibi in commodity exchange.
Li Huairen told reporters that Xiji County, located in the transitional zone between the Central Plains and nomadic people, has been the eastern section of the Silk Road since the Han Dynasty. Merchants and tourists traveled from south to north, leaving a lot of coins.
Among all the collections, the farthest "hometown" is an ancient Persian silver coin, which was cast during the reign of the first 15 emperor of the ancient Persian Shashan dynasty. As an important town in the east of the ancient Silk Road, Xiji once unearthed a large number of foreign coins.
The smallest coin is the "Jade Pod Half Liang" copper coin in the Gaozu period of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC). The copper coin is as big as a small nail and has a round square hole. Although the size is small, the words engraved on the coin can be seen clearly under a magnifying glass. The most "valuable" coin is the Han Dynasty knife coin unearthed in Jiang Tai Township, Xiji County. This is the largest collection of ancient coins so far. This coin was the product of the first currency reform in Regent Wang Mang 14. A knife coin with one knife equal to 5,000 yuan could reach about 5,000 "five baht" coins in the Han Dynasty.
The most "precious" coin is a "Ganlongbao" mother coin of Xinjiang Mint Bureau in Qing Dynasty, which belongs to national first-class cultural relics. Mother money is a model used to make money, which is rare in the whole country.
The heaviest coin is the silver ingot of A Qing Dynasty, weighing about 350g. The heaviest batch of ancient coins unearthed at one time in Xiji County is also the "silver ingot" of the Qing Dynasty, with a total weight of 2 kg.
The most beautiful coin is the "winning money" collected in the museum. "Winning money", also known as "spending money", originated in Han Dynasty. But it doesn't circulate, and it was used by the ancients to pray and avoid disaster. According to the patterns engraved on coins, "winning money" can be divided into zodiac, flowers and birds, and animals. The most "hard-won" coins in the collection belong to the marked "five baht" coins in the Han Dynasty. 1996, a farmer in Xiji County found more than 20 Han Dynasty "five baht" coins engraved with various marks such as "five", "triangle" and "star point" in his farmland, and the cultural relics department made many visits to "beg for coins" and obtained these precious coins. (